AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A few paces away, Valen drank an herb tea brewed by Skulleater to aid in replenishing the fury in his blood. The way he’d broken the earth enough to spout fire from their cliffs had brought a great deal of fatigue to Livia’s father. Still, he eyed Hesh over the tip of his mug with a bloodlust that bordered on madness.
Gavyn and Celine stood near Sewell like twin shields, both flinched when I approached. Celine pleaded under her breath. I ignored them.
“Sewell. Gavyn told you I have need of Fleshripper.”
Sewell shifted on his feet. “That was his whisper.”
I gripped his shoulder, voice low. “I know what I ask is a risk.”
The soft, kindhearted expression shifted to the man I’d known as a small boy—the bold lord who’d defended his kingdom, who’d sailed the most vicious of seas. “For our fox, little eel?”
I clapped his shoulder. “For our fox.”
Sewell approached Lord Hesh. Spoken words muddled on his tongue at times, but Harald’s torture had never dampened Sewell’s sea voice.
“Erik, if this gets him killed . . .” Gavyn didn’t finish his threat. He didn’t need to. This would expose Sewell. No one had the voice of theformer bone lord, and for his sacrifice, I would spend the rest of my living days ensuring he was unharmed.
Folk who’d believed as Thorvald, those who would still see Sewell as a traitor, were dying off, either through war or assassination by a young lord. But it was time to let Sewell Fleshripper, at last, be free. He’d committed no sin in my eyes for loving his mate, nor had his children.
Sewell crouched in front of Hesh, grinning. “See me?”
Hesh squinted, searching Sewell’s face he kept hidden under brims and a wild beard and new scars.
After a moment, Hesh paled. “You’re alive.”
With a deep laugh, Sewell shoved Hesh flat onto the deck and straddled his hips. Injured and weakened, Hesh still tried to scramble away until an axe with a black blade sliced into his shin. The blade lord shrieked in agony.
“You took my girl.” Valen stared down at Hesh.
“No . . . I did not, earth king. Bonekeeper—”
“Yes, I’ve heard that name a great deal. Seems you aided the son of a bitch. Might as well have grabbed her yourself.” Valen backed away, trembling, and rolled his second axe in his grip. “If you do not want the other, you’ll stay put.”
Sewell flatted his palm over Hesh’s chest and hummed, soft and haunting. Much like a thin piece of parchment catching flame, Hesh’s bloodied skin over his heart burned and ebbed into ash until bone remained.
The blade lord’s eyes rolled back into his head. Murmurs lifted amongst the crew as they watched Sewell work. Fleshripper, a great value once to King Thorvald, was a man who could peel flesh from the bones while a soul still lived.
Harald always bemoaned what a pity it was to kill Fleshripper since he’d admired Sewell’s exquisite knack of torturing to get answers, to threaten, to keep folk trembling beneath the feet of the nobles of the Ever.
Layers of skin peeled away over Hesh’s body, but under Sewell’s touch, the edges scorched and cauterized, burning back the blood.
Gavyn told me King Thorvald had used Sewell many a time to leave gaping wounds on enemies—decidedly painful, yet they never bled out, simply lived for weeks, months, with monstrous, weeping holes in their bodies.
A few retching sounds came from the back of the ship. Jonas lowered to his knees, followed by Alek, as though the two princes were wholly fascinated.
Sewell’s voice cut off once Hesh’s chest was flayed, open and exposed. His bloody breastbone revealed. There, burned into the bone, was a symbol surrounded by small script written in a language I did not know.
I’d drag out any damn scholar, any witch, any sea fae who understood old words before the night’s end. I would find her tonight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE SONGBIRD
Fione’s knife stopped midair,the point a finger width from my nose.
The witch’s eyes went wide. “How . . .”
Roots and vines coiled in front of me like a wooded guard bursting forward to take the strike in my stead. Boughs and tree limbs had shot forward and cocooned her knife, halting it at a safe distance from my face.
